


Mourn The Ghuleh

by PopiaSimp



Category: Ghost (Sweden Band)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Papa misses his zombie queen, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 15:20:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29420736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PopiaSimp/pseuds/PopiaSimp
Summary: Papa II once had a beautiful fiance. She was lost to a shipwreck, chasing her dream of sailing the world. Every year since, he has mourned her.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	Mourn The Ghuleh

**Author's Note:**

> HUGE TWs: Suicide attempt, Cutting, Death, Blood

Around the start of fall each year, Secondo always seemed to vanish intermittently. Come September twenty-third, he would be gone for three days straight. Not a sign of him would come until the twenty seventh, when he returned from wherever he vanished, never explaining a thing. Not to his brothers, to his father, or Sister Imperator, although they all knew.

The middle Emeritus brother once had a loving fiance. She had wanted to sail the world, or at least part of it, before she settled down, and he told her to follow her dreams. She cast off on a ship with like minded people, set for distant shores, on August fourth.

He had found out months later that the ship had sunk just fifty days later, and he would never forget the date. At first, he wrote songs about her, had portraits and drawings done in her likeness, but he would never move on. He only made it seem like he had. 

He moved all of her belongings, and everything that reminded him of her, into a room hidden behind his own. And now, he was simply watching his grandfather clock, eyes flicking with every _tick_ of the second hand as it finally reached midnight. The clock chimed once, and he rose from his desk, footsteps quiet as he pulled the book that would open the entrance off its shelf.

The bookshelf slides open, and Secondo steps inside, and waits until the wall had closed behind him. As it did, the lights turned on within this room, laid out perfectly as she would have loved. Over her desk sat the biggest portrait of her, one that they had had done on their anniversary. He was so young, then… so happy.

* * *

_“Secondo! You have to stay still for the painter!” she laughed as he moved to kiss her cheeks._

_“But I cannot take my eyes off of you, amore mia… How can he be mad?” he replies, placing another kiss to her cheek before he sighs softly, murmuring “I suppose… you are right.”_

_“Some may think sitting here, pressed this close to each other, is more than enough, but you… such a romantic man, you must kiss me at all times! Always having a hand on me…”_

_“It is because I love you so much, cara mia. I have never met another whom I have loved so dearly.”_ _  
_ _“Secondo…”_ _  
_ _“It is the truth! I do not lie to you, mia sposa. Many a woman have come and gone, but none of them have made me feel as you do.”_

_“I will always be honored you chose me, amore mio.”_

_“I knew as soon as I met you, that I could never let you go.”_

* * *

He knew his tears were ruining his paint, but it only reflected how he felt without her. He hated to still be alive without her… but his attempts at death had all failed. The one that he would never forget was right after he had learned she had passed. He had attempted to be alone, to succeed… but he had failed at his timing.

He still bore the scars, and sometimes, he used his magic on himself, to see them as if they were torn open yet again… as Terzo had seen them, as well…

* * *

_“I will be with you soon, regina mia…” he sobbed, taking the gold plated knife he had been gripping for days. He wasn’t sure what to do with it, wasn’t… sure how to do this… all he wanted was for the pain to stop…_

_He took the blade and swiped it across the underside of his forearm once…_

_twice…_

_three_

_four_

_five_

_six_

_seven times._

_One for each year they were together._

_He took the knife into his other hand, ripping his sleeve up and starting to cut that arm as well._

_One…_

_two…_

_three..._

_..._

_forty-seven..._

_forty-eight…_

_forty-nine…_

_fifty._

_One for each day she was on that wretched ship._

_He looked over these cuts, tears falling into them, stinging and burning as it hit his raw flesh. He knew this wouldn’t be enough to kill him… but he wanted to feel_ **_physical_ ** _pain for once… he flexed his arms, whipping them around to try and rip his flesh from force alone… but all it did was spatter blood all over the floor._

_He couldn’t take it. Every breath was pain, every blink, every molecule moving inside of him… he grips the knife again and slit into one wrist deeply, swearing he felt bone scrape the knife’s edge. Blood poured from the wound, pulsing with his beating heart, as he took the knife into the other hand and slashed through that wrist as well, though he had far less control, and the cut was just as shallow as the others…_

_He sat in the chair he’d plastered himself to, sat in the middle of his room, staring at that portrait of them… his vision faded as his blood dripped to the floor, but as soon as his head fell back against the chair, he heard a voice… distant…_

_“FRATELLO! SECONDO!” it called, and he moaned, so weakly…_

_“Let… me g… o….”_

_“NO! PRIMO! LUCIFER, FUCK! HELP!!!_ **_HELP ME!_ ** _”_

* * *

He still remembered the stench of the hospital as he woke… and the first thing he did was attempt to dig open the wounds… but his wrists were bound to the bed. He was kept there like an animal, and he wanted to be treated like one. Put out of his misery. That was far from his last attempt, but after a decade, he realized that if he wasn’t meant to die, he should live on in her honor. And since she had loved the water, he had the Water and Earth Ghouls craft ponds and lakes around the abbey, filling them with flora and fauna… a sight he wishes she could have seen. 

Secondo had taken it upon himself to see things that he wished she could have. He travelled to world monuments, sacred places, played tourist… he swore he could feel her with him, sometimes…

* * *

_The Dead Sea was somewhere she’d always wanted to go. He promised that they would, after she returned from her trip, and he, from the tour he’d left on. He had tried to enjoy it as if she were still there, but as he sat in his hotel, overlooking the sea… he was miserable._

_He stood on the balcony, the wind whipping past him, catching the edges of his robe. He looked out along the horizon, and then down, to the ground below… but as his eyes lingered, he heard something._

_“Secondo.”_

_The ex-Antipope’s head whipped around, to find he was still alone… but… that…_

_“Rilassare…”_

_He was hearing things. He had to be. He… He turned, and went back into the hotel room, sliding the balcony door shut with a sigh. Whatever voice, whether it be in his head, or someone’s carried by the wind, was right… he needed to relax._

_The bed creaked as he crawled into it, lying on the right side, as he always had… his eyes slipped closed as he reached a hand out to the empty side, sighing out “Mi manche, amore mia…”_

_His hand_ **_hit something._ **

_Something…_ **_w a r m._ **

_He felt_ **_breath on his ear_ ** _…_

_“Sono sempre qui con te…”_

_His eyes fly open, and whatever his hand was on, vanished. The breath, the voice… everything was gone… and he swears… if this was some Air Ghoul, who followed him, to fuck with him… he would murder them in front of everyone they knew and loved._

* * *

Going through these memories every year was likely detrimental to his health, but he didn’t care. Every year without her was hell, all he _had_ were memories… three days spent recounting every one he had with her… remembering seven years with her, and however many had passed without her…

As soon as the clock hit midnight, September twenty-seventh, he stood from his chair, giving that large portrait one last look, and a murmur of “Piangerò per quello che abbiamo avuto per il resto della mia vita.”

He left that room, as much as it pained him. He wanted to stay in there, to _die_ in there with what he had left of her. It was supposed to be their nursery, the room their children grew up in… now it was a museum of travesty, a display of pain so deep he was sure he would still feel it in death. 

Secondo watched the shelf slide closed, blocking his view of her for another year… he sighs softly, resting his head against it as he breathes “Until we meet again… amore mia…”


End file.
